Summary

The CORE Organic pilot project ‘Farmer Consumer Partnerships’ aims to strengthen the partnership between producers and consumers through better communication. To achieve this the project first mapped concerns of organic stakeholders in relation to a broad range of ethical values and then compared them with the European regulations for organic food before testing a limited number of communication arguments related to those concerns with consumers. Stakeholders of organic supply chains refer to a broad range of values that include concerns about systems integrity, regional origin, fairness issues as well as impact on the environment, on animals and other social impact. Several concerns including regional origin of products and fairness issues are not directly covered by the European Regulation for organic food. Seven different ethical attributes were tested with about 1200 consumers in relation to product prices and additional premiums by means of an Information‐Display‐Matrix (IDM) in five European countries. In all countries the most important ethical attributes to consumers turned out to be 'animal welfare', 'regional production' and 'fair prices for farmers'. It is concluded that communicating ethical quality of organic products that are produced in ways that go beyond the requirements of the European Regulation represents an opportunity for differentiation in an increasingly competitive market. Increasing transparency could be the first step in facing the difficulties in defining mandatory standards, particularly regarding ‘fairness’ and ‘local/regional production’.